Naver (035420.KS) will invest 1 trillion won in its creator ecosystem over the next five years to strengthen the competitiveness of its artificial intelligence (AI) search services. Believing that the quality of AI services depends on high-quality data, the company aims to expand the content base needed to advance search by supporting top-tier creators. Through this strategy, Naver seeks to secure differentiated competitiveness against global Big Tech in the "vertical AI" domain, where search extends into actual service usage in shopping, local services and finance.
Kim Kwang-hyun, Naver's chief data and content officer (CDO), unveiled the plan at a press conference held Tuesday at The Plaza Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul. "As AI technology advances rapidly, the value of content becomes even more important," Kim said. "We will accumulate creator content and external partnership data and connect them with AI to deliver a differentiated user experience."
Over the past 25 years, Naver has built a user-generated content (UGC) ecosystem including Knowledge iN, Blog and Cafe, and has used it as a core asset for improving its search services. Currently, about 20 million creators on the Naver platform produce more than 630 million pieces of content each year. As search model performance becomes more standardized at higher levels, the value of high-quality data is expected to outweigh sheer volume. Google's recent $60 million content supply agreement with the major U.S. community Reddit is interpreted as part of the same trend.
Accordingly, Naver will create a total 1 trillion won "impact fund" over the next five years to serve as a catalyst for expanding the creator ecosystem. Beginning next month, the company will launch "Naver Mate," a support program for top creators. Under Naver Mate, 3,000 creators with proven expertise and credibility from Blog, Cafe, Knowledge iN and Premium Content will be selected each month and receive a combined 20 billion won in annual activity support.
Recipients will be selected based on "AI Briefing citation counts" across 10 top-level categories including travel, life and tech, and 25 sub-topics including health, parenting, movies and automobiles. Selected creators will receive a base activity fee of 300,000 won per month, with 10 top performers in each of the 10 main categories receiving an additional 3 million won per month, and the single top creator receiving an additional 10 million won per month. The profiles and content of selected creators will display an official emblem to make them more discoverable in search results. In the second half of this year, the program will be expanded to creators on the short-form service "Clip."
Naver is expanding rewards for content creators because securing high-quality data is becoming increasingly important for improving AI search quality. Among the content cited in Naver's "AI Briefing," launched in January this year, user-generated content accounts for 70%. Naver plans to build a virtuous cycle in which top creators are rewarded for producing quality content, which in turn improves AI service quality.
The company is also accelerating the advancement of its AI search services. AI Briefing has established itself as a core service with 30 million monthly users, and "AI Tab," launched as a beta service last month, surpassed 3 million cumulative users within a month. Naver plans to fully apply its next-generation generative AI model "HyperCLOVA X" to its services soon and to release a new version of its image search tool "Smart Lens" at the end of June.
Ultimately, Naver aims to realize a "vertical AI agent" that handles everyday services such as shopping, place reservations, finance and real estate within Naver. The strategy is to compete in vertical domains rather than going head-to-head with the general-purpose AI models of global Big Tech firms such as Google and OpenAI. "Compared with Google AI, Naver AI's biggest differentiator is vertical search," Kim said. "Naver may be the only operator in the world that can complete the entire process within a single service, starting with product search and extending to purchases and place reservations."
